Some of you film fans may know about the impending release of Total Recall, the remake of the 1990 Arnold Schwarzenegger special effects landmark flick. Actually, the new film, which hits theaters tomorrow, isn’t so much a remake as an attempt to get back to the source material for the story (yes, it had a plot), a short story written by science fiction legend Philip K. Dick, who penned the stories that became Blade Runner and Minority Report.

The new Total Recall has Colin Farrell stepping into the role of Douglas Quaid, a construction worker who undergoes a memory implantation and discovers he’s been an undercover, planet-hopping super agent all along. So, there won’t be all the muscle flexing, but it seems the movie will have almost as many firefights as the original bloodbath.

And, like the original, the new Total Recall features some cutting-edge-looking firearms for that dystopian, futuristic feel.

Of the more interesting firearms they used, and a gun I thought was way too ugly to ever get any screen time, is the Chiappa Rhino revolver. I had a chance to shoot this bizarre-looking wheel gun when it was introduced at SHOT Show 2011. The barrel aligns with the bottom chamber of the cylinder, rather than the top, which lowers the gun’s center of gravity and aligns the bore more naturally with the shooter’s arm. The model I fired had a 5-inch barrel, like the one Farrell is brandishing in the photo above. It was chambered in .357 magnum and had the felt recoil of a 9mm round fired from a heavy gun and almost no muzzle flip, which let me get my sights back on target for follow-up shots very quickly. That hammer-looking thing isn’t actually a hammer, but an external device that allows you to cock the internal hammer for single-action fire, if you so desire.

It’s an ugly piece of iron that shoots like a dream. Even dressing it up with some nickel plating and a laser sight, like the one Kate Beckinsale (playing Quaid’s wife, Lori) is wielding below, doesn’t help its looks. Having Ms. Beckinsale holding the gun, however, does.

The 1990 flick had a score of bizarre firearms too, including the Claridge Hi-Tec GA-9 the former Governator is holding on a young Sharon Stone here, who played Lori in the original.

They were only produced from 1990 to 1994. Has anyone out there ever owned or fired one of these?

The new movie hits theaters tomorrow, but I don’t think the Rhino will be enough to get me to wade through opening-night crowds. I’ll save that ordeal for The Expendables 2 in a couple weeks.